Without Retreat
by 90TheGeneral09
Summary: Modern Warfare 2. Midshipman Andrei Kriegman, attack helicopter pilot with the 126th Independent Helicopter Squadron, is ordered to assault the evacuation site at the Washington Monument in Washington, D.C. The invasion is going well, but that could change at any minute.
1. Chapter 1- Against All Odds

**Chapter I- Against All Odds**

* * *

**A/N: This is a follow-up to "Krov, Moya Krov". The idea of this story, like its predecessor, is not to condone or condemn the Russians in the "Modern Warfare" series, but rather, it is an attempt to show things from their perspective. Powerful motivation must have been possessed by those thousands of Russian soldiers, sailors, airmen and marines. They must have known that it was "us or them", and that if they failed, many, many of them would not be going home alive. The Russians are not inhuman demons. It is true that in "Modern Warfare" 2 and 3, they attack the United States and Europe and fight quite ruthlessly. But, as this story points out, in the vicious, to-the-death fighting in the Battle of Washington, so would the Americans.**

* * *

They moved swiftly and purposefully, sweeping left and right in quick, zigzag patterns; the areas that had been taken seemed determined to not stay taken, and enemy units that were supposed to no longer exist seemed equally stubborn in their refusal to be pacified and removed from the battlefield. They were Mil Mi-45 "Super Hind" attack helicopters, among the very finest machines and men flying for the Russian Democratic Union. They were the 126th Independent Helicopter Squadron, and they were on this section of the front- flying low over Eastern Virginia- for a very specific reason.

New York City, their original area of operations when the invasion had begun four days ago, had not been expecting a full third of the Russian Navy's Northern Fleet to appear out of the mist like some nightmare from a Cold War Pentagon strategist's darkest, most horrific night. Much like Langley Air Force Base in Virginia, those federal and state agents holding such locations as Fort Jay in New York Harbor never stood a chance. The Russian marines and paratroopers overwhelmed them, and the entire city of New York was a warzone within hours. Everything East of Interstate 95 in Virginia was taken within Day 1 of the invasion, as was the entire waterfront and harbor of New York City.

After that, though, things had slowed in a way Russian commanders had anticipated, but nonetheless didn't like. The Americans had rallied gamely on all fronts, particularly in South Carolina, where early alerts to law enforcement and the military- 911 calls of all things- had given them much-needed advance notice. With Fort Benning and Tyndall Air Force Base reacting within the first hours of the invasion on their front and Forts Jackson and Bragg moving just a few hours after that, the South Fleet landing force had been taking a beating; thousands of Russian troops landed every hour, but thousands of Americans were racing to meet them.

Center Fleet had been far more successful, overrunning the critical air-power and intelligence centre of Langley AFB with blinding speed and driving on Washington, D.C. and Baltimore in a stunning blitzkrieg assault. Airborne, air assault, marine and armored forces- as well as close and strategic air support- had all been so beautifully coordinated, even Sun Tzu would have stood back, momentarily impressed. But the Center Fleet's early successes had not been followed up with the capture of either Baltimore or D.C.; in Virginia it seemed like damn near every civilian had a gun, and Russian soldiers kept getting shot- or shot at- in zones that were supposed to have been occupied over a day ago. The American military, both national and state militia, was rushing everything it had into battle and doing a damn good job of it; after pushing hard into their two objective cities, Center Fleet's invasion force had been stalled, and even the best and most successful moments of the assault carried a heavy price, getting heavier all the time.

North Fleet had been the most successful of the landing forces by far; their casualties were the lowest, and though fierce resistance had stalled their advance too after the first day of the invasion, New York Harbor was completely under Russian control. Admiral of the Fleet Alexei Stukov was already commanding the entire naval force of all three fleets from his headquarters in Fort Jay; discussions were being made to perhaps place the occupation headquarters there, away from any Americans who would otherwise love to summon a resistance force and strike at it.

With their successes in the first two days of the invasion, the 126th Independent Helicopter Squadron had truly lived up their name; they operated almost entirely on their own for hours at a time, and typically landed just long enough to refuel, rearm, repair what there was time for and lift off again. Their missions were both specific and open-ended; what the Americans liked to call ROE- Rules of Engagement- effectively did not exist. Some of the Super Hind pilots allowed or even encouraged their WSO's- Weapons System Officers- to fire on civilian targets, or at least to disregard collateral damage while attempting to destroy military ones. The men of the 126th would be told to destroy a tank column moving on Park Avenue, and they would indeed destroy it. But if they happened to shred a few dozen cars and rack up civilian casualties in the process- who cared? Certainly not the 126th's squadron commander, and definitely not Russian command. They could have cared less.

This was all or nothing- every Russian soldier in the invasion force knew the Americans were going to be fighting with their backs to the wall on this one, and that Russia would in time be faced with the same problem if the invasion failed. In all three avenues of invasion- South Carolina, Virginia, and New York- the Russians and Americans hit each other with everything they had. City by city, county by county, town by town, some of the fiercest and most bitter fighting in history was taking place. The Americans, soldiers and no small number of civilians alike, vowed to defend their homes; the Russians vowed to avenge the dead at Zakhaev International Airport in Moscow, and to free the world from the unforgivable excesses of the capitalist system. Battles were taking place that exhausted men on both sides, pushed them to their limits and then kept going, but neither the Russians nor the Americans would back down. All over the South, Center, and North fronts, it was truly a fight to the death.

On the third day of the invasion, the Admiral Yuri Borodin began a hasty voyage south, just far enough to give the gunships of the 126th the range they needed to fly to and at the Lenin Air Operations Base- formerly Langley AFB near Newport News, Virginia. The _Admiral Kuznetsov_, namesake of the _Admiral Yuri Borodin_'s carrier class, had been sunk by a sneak attack from an American submarine on the second day of the invasion; it was suspected that one of the American subs that had managed to escape the attack on King's Bay, Georgia was responsible. Regardless, with the _Admiral Kuznetsov_ gone, her surviving aircraft units had been forced to transfer to what bases existed on land behind friendly lines; each landing force had an aircraft carrier as its main air support base and command center, and the loss of one of those three ships was a great blow to the Center Fleet.

Despite this, commanding officer General Dmitri Volkov was optimistic, at the very least absolutely committed. He was a big, leather-faced bear of a man, a ferocious combat soldier who would rather lead the charge on each of the hated Americans' positions in Washington City and Baltimore himself than sit in a captured American command center and direct the war from there. Volkov tracked his forces' progress every step of the way from day one. The airborne forces dropping East of I-95 had done their jobs well and taken few casualties; the same was true of the marine and air assault forces. The Spetznaz, as always, did superbly; they were half the reason Newport News as an entire sector of resistance had fallen so swiftly.

But the airborne forces landing west of I-95- the line of demarcation, it turned out, and the point from which all further advances would be judged- were a completely different story. The drops were made in large numbers, and for the most part on time and in the places intended. But the simple fact was that the paratroopers, for every block of Washington or Baltimore they took, paid for every advance with heavy casualties. An entire airborne division had been committed between those two cities; a full 10,000 men were involved with airborne and air assault insertions alone. But the Americans were responding, their counterattacks and defenses getting more coordinated and dangerous every hour. By day three of the invasion, the gloves were off, and the element of surprise was gone long ago.

Those paratroopers who had survived their drops and the initial days of fighting had done well, and the follow-up advances of armour and air forces to support them had more or less occurred as promised. The good news was that Russian air forces essentially owned the air over the Center front, due in no small part to their swift obliteration of the problem that could have been posed by the F-22 units at Langley. Russian helicopters, fighters and bombers flew sorties every minute of every day, dueling fiercely with any American aircraft that rose to meet them, and shooting more than a few down. The Russian Air Force and Naval Aviation Forces were paying their own price in blood, but their losses were actually quite light compared to the beating the airborne forces were taking.

Despite everything, General Volkov was correct in his belief that the Center Front held the greatest chance for success, and certainly, that their mission was the most important. The best possible scenario on Dmitri Volkov's front would mean everything between Baltimore, D.C., and Richmond being captured and the American high command being captured, killed, or at the very least driven into hiding, disorganized and hopefully cut off. The advance had stalled by Day 3, slowing to block-by-block fighting in the two major objective cities- DC and Baltimore- even with tanks and APC's being rushed up to the fighting.

That was part of the problem, though; the Americans were racing tanks and APC's of their own into battle, and were in a damn big hurry to do it. The M1 Abrams in particular was half the reason second-line T-72's were already being summoned to augment the cutting edge T-80 and T-90, and reserve BTR-60 APC's were also being raced forward to supplement the numbers of the BTR-80 and BTR-90 armoured personnel carriers; it was a damn good tank and everybody knew it. For a time Russian armour had moved with impunity, but now they had to earn every inch they took, just like the airborne. They were doing well, though; all that was needed was for the fingers of steel to withdraw momentarily, coordinate, and come crashing down as the iron fist that would break the defenders of D.C. and Baltimore for good.

While the advance had stalled for the time being, in a way the fact that the Americans had so much committed to holding Washington- a very unwise strategy in Dmitri Volkov's eyes, since his grandfathers, when faced with the capture of Moscow, had simply burned it and vanished into the wilderness- meant that the United States was staking a great deal in the Battle of Washington. It meant that the Russians were going to have to truly earn any victory they might achieve there. But if they did- if they achieved a breakthrough in Washington- the East Coast, at the very least, would be finished.

That was where the 126th IHS came in. They had lost only 10 of their 40 gunships in the first 3 days, a much better record than most of the other attack helicopter units. The Havocs and Black Sharks were more agile than the Mi-24's and even the new Mi-45's, but they could not carry 9 fresh infantry into a battle or pull 9 injured ones out. They could not take as much ground fire as a Hind or Super Hind could, and most of all, perhaps the 126th was just luckier than most. Certainly they had been luckier than the Mi-45 unit originally assigned to the Center front; the 155th had lost nearly all their machines on the _Admiral Kuznetsov_, stuck belowdecks during an overhaul, a fast attempt to repair and rearm the gunships that just wasn't fast enough.

The Russian armed forces on the Center front needed to take D.C., plain and simple. Even Baltimore, even New York, could wait next to that. In a sense, perhaps without even realizing it, the Russians had placed an equal amount of importance on D.C.- they were about as committed to taking the city as the Americans were to holding it. Because while the city itself was nothing to the Russians, the vast wealth of intelligence treasure troves that it would provide and the tremendous boost its capture would give to the morale of Russian forces was very much worth something. The morale benefit justified the city's capture in itself. If the invasion forces- of America and, very soon, of Europe- could only be told that their comrades had captured the capital of the United States, the men's willingness to fight on would be redoubled.

An armoured fist as needed to strike at the heart of the American defenses in D.C.; to break through all the positions they were still successfully holding. The finest pilots Russia could provide her ground forces would be needed to support this effort, and the men of the 126th were just the men to do it.

So on this afternoon of August 14th, 2016, the 30 Super Hinds of the veteran helicopter squadron were swooping in like flying tanks, airborne crocodiles or prehistoric birds of prey, headed for a strike on several positions held by the Americans in D.C. They were going to attack this afternoon, and perhaps again in the evening. The men knew they might not be getting real rest again for quite some time to come. But that was all right; like their helicopters, the pilots of the 126th were superior men. As long as they had their gunships, they would be fine. In those big Super Hinds, they were supermen.

Flying behind the controls of the 2nd gunship in the 1st group of 15 Super Hinds, Lieutenant Andrei Kriegman, Hero of the RDU- well, nominated, anyway- grinned as he watched Midshipman Mikhail Orlov, his WSO, release an ATGM as the squadron flew over I-95. The missile detonated and set off a thunderous bang; Orlov had aimed at a big gas tanker truck, abandoned on the highway amidst a mass of jammed cars, trucks, and other automobiles of every size and description. The blast was amazing; at this altitude, more than one of the pilots felt it. Nobody much cared, though; they had a few rockets, bullets, and missiles to spare, and an American had owned that truck, while still more had owned the cars nearby. Each one of those owners- if they were even still alive- lost money with each of those machines that was blown up. But the Russians just reminded themselves of the dead at Zakhaev IA; the property- and the lives- lost there had been quite expensive, too.


	2. Chapter 2- Air Assault

**Chapter II- Air Assault**

* * *

The formation scattered as they reached the outlying suburbs of Northern Virginia; down below, the Mi-45 pilots could see countless marks of the ongoing battle. There were traffic jams, accidents, and- insane as it was in the middle of an invasion- lootings and thefts by the dozens. The Russian Army shot looters just the same as the American army did, however, so those individuals who were intent on depriving their countrymen of property at such an hour soon learned there were higher priorities.

Andrei looked out the reinforced glass bubble cockpit he rode in, slightly behind and higher up than the WSO's separate cockpit. Each cockpit had its own set of flight controls, the WSO's normally being restricted just to weapons aiming and firing. The idea was that if either man was killed, the other could switch the controls and do both jobs at once. The glass was able to withstand a direct hit from anything short of 12mm rounds; even .50 cal would bounce off if the hit was a glancing one.

Looking out his cockpit, Andrei could see as a BTR-90, crashing recklessly through a backyard after being directed so by its supporting infantry, ambushed a single M3 Bradley that was moving up the nearby street. The Bradley's own infantry support alerted it to the danger, and the crew reacted fast, spinning the turret around and getting off a few rounds from the APC's explosive cannon as they readied an ATGM. One of the following Mi-45's, part of the second wave of 15, must have let off an ATGM despite their orders to ignore enemy targets until they had reached the heart of Washington itself- the missile streaked in and sliced through the thinner armour of the M3's rear door, then hit something deeper inside and exploded. The M3's infantry support scattered across the street as the BTR encouraged their withdrawal; the team of Russian paratroopers paused for just a few moments to cheer and wave, thanking their airborne- permanently, if the pilots were lucky- comrades for the assistance.

The Mi-45's flew on, their pilots wishing they had time to be of more help to those men and the other allies they flew over- and to take part in the savage combat taking place just beneath them. They knew the mission ahead of them was more important, though, and flew on.

It was starting to get dark, and with a major coordinated offensive by Russian air and ground forces set to take place soon in D.C., Andrei and the others in the 126th fully expected they would be over the combat zone until well after dark. With calls for air support coming from pretty much every Russian unit on the ground with a radio, a general order had been issued for helicopter and fixed wing pilots alike: remain over the combat zone until guns are dry unless otherwise instructed. It had meant that some air units stayed over enemy lines too long and were shot down, but the ROE meant it was open season; anything Russian units got in their sights they could shoot, so long as it wasn't from the RDU.

Tonight, August 14th, 2016; Offensive Nevsky was underway. Gathering as many soldiers, airmen, and marines and as much armour and air support as could be mustered, the Russian Center Fleet invasion force was going to take D.C. Tonight. That was the order; go charging forward, hitting with everything you have, and not one step back. "If we are not victorious," General Volkov was reputed to have shouted, "let no one come back alive!"

It sounded like something the General would have said. Even if he hadn't actually said it, Volkov certainly would have if he'd thought of it, so the point was rather moot.

The gunships flew low over the city-turned-battlefield, heading for the city's heart as they passed through many, many clouds of rising smoke. Most of it gray, a lot of it black. Distantly, listening to the steady roar of the engine and the howl of the spinning rotor blades just overhead, Andrei reflected that even if the Americans won this battle, they'd be paying dearly for it. The damage done to Washington in these past three days, now close to four, would not be cleaned up easily. They'd be finding bodies and unexploded ordnance for years.

"Break off, Attack Formation Theta!" Captain 2nd Rank Alexei Sarov, CO of the squadron after Kaczynski was shot down over New York, barked the order on a channel that let him talk to every gunship in the squadron. Immediately, the unit split up again, now flying in 2 groups of 6 and 2 groups of 7. The four groups headed off to their different objectives, flying in loose formation to further challenge enemy AA fire. Flights A and B were headed for Embassy Row and Pennsylvania Avenue respectively. Flight C, Andrei's group of 6, would be helping spearhead an armoured assault on the evacuation site at the Washington Monument while Flight D aided another armoured force in overrunning the Americans defending the Capitol building, from there to launch a fast attack on the Washington Naval Yard.

Andrei's heart thudded in his chest as he banked the Mi-45 into a turn, following the group leader, Boris Dolohov, as he swept low over the streets, firing on any vehicles or infantry he didn't recognize as friendly. Radio chatter from the ground kept threatening to jam up the radios, and Dolohov was swearing violently as he ordered the group to again change frequencies.

"Left, left, left! American fighters coming in low; two of them!" that was the last thing Mikhail Petrov got to say on the radio; flying off to the port side of Andrei's Mi-45, Petrov- like the others- had assumed the two fighters flying overhead in their direction were MiG-29's. It turned out they were F-15's, one of many efforts by the US Air Force to prove they were not going to give the Russians air superiority anytime soon. Andrei's blood froze as he looked and saw; the fighters had banked and turned upon noticing the profile of the Russian helicopters; racing in fast, they were going to target the whole group and kill everyone!

"Break, break, break!" Dolohov shouted over the radio, but everyone was already doing that. The formation scattered, each gunship racing in a different direction and ducking as low to the ground as they dared, then flying lower. As Andrei heaved the big helicopter into a turn, he glanced off to port just in time to see Mikhail Petrov's Mi-45 disintegrate, crashing to the street below in a ball of flame.

"Shit! Shit! Fucking _hell_!"

"_Flares_! Use the damned _flares_!"

"Dolohov is down! Say again, Dolohov is down!"

Andrei's radio filled with the frantic, excited shouts of the group's other pilots, some of whom were cut off midsentence. Andrei pulled back hard on the controls, sweat drenching the inside of his flight suit. The Americans were coming in low, almost as low as he was; alarms blared as one of the F-15's targeted Andrei's Super Hind, and he jabbed a hand at the chaff button. Bright flares exploded out of the gunship, and Andrei could feel every muscle in his body drawn tight as he pulled back on the controls, struggled to climb, to get away…

BOOM!

The missile fired exploded not even a hundred feet from the Mi-45's belly, shaking the entire helicopter almost as badly as if it really had been hit. Alarms blared, and the cockpit warning lights were going off like a Christmas tree. But as Andrei jerked his head to starboard, looking frantically to see if the Americans were coming around for another pass, he instead saw them climbing above the battlefield, moving up and away. Perhaps they'd sighted a couple of Tupolev-22 "Backfire" bombers coming in on a turn-and-burn run, or a flight of Tu-95 "Bear" heavy bombers, headed for something much more important. Regardless, they were leaving; that was all Andrei cared about.

Letting out a ragged sigh of relief, Andrei leveled out, looking around as he called into his radio. "Group C, Group C, all ships check in!"

Static spat and hissed like an angry cat, then a voice said, "Harkov here."

"Potemkin here."

"Kriegman here," Andrei added, then because he had to, "Is this all we have?"

"Yes, sir," the older of the two junior pilots answered, that being Harkov. "I saw three of ours go down, say again three."

"We've lost Dolohov," Potemkin added, "I saw his ship get hit."

"All right," Andrei said, forcing himself to stay calm and telling himself- ordering himself- that he hadn't just pissed his pants, "Everybody form up on my wing. We're still going in on the Washington Monument and we're gonna give those ground-pounders the help they need!"

They had been close to the Monument itself by then. As they flew over the World War II memorial- a field headquarters for the armour force driving on the Washington Monument- another, unfamiliar voice broke into the steady chatter of static in Andre's helmet.

"Friendly Mi-45's, friendly Mi-45's, please respond. This is Red Herring 1, say again Red Herring 1."

Andrei knew that name; Red Herring 1 was the call sign of the commanding officer of the 501st Motor Rifle Battalion; his BTR's were almost all BTR-90's, and his men had done extremely well in the initial days of the invasion. As feared for their ruthlessness as they were respected for their courage and ability, the men of the 501st loved to fight. Their BTR's would overrun the Washington Monument evac site today or die tearing at its flanks.

"Red Herring 1," Andrei answered as his- now his- flight of three passed the World War II memorial, flying over at least five BTR's as they drove forward, dozens of infantry advancing with them, "This is Iron Glass Five. We're here to help."

"Fucking good news, son," the battalion commander said. "Best news I've had all day. We have heavy armour en route; my BTR's need support until they arrive. After, we'll try to leave you a share of the kills."

Grinning in spite of how scared he'd just been- and still was- Andrei banked his gunship into a turn to line up with the 501st's line of advance, pushing through a light covering of trees as they headed for the American perimeter of armour at the base of the Monument. The Americans had M1 tanks there along with Bradleys and dug-in infantry; the even the cutting-edge BTR-90 did not have the firepower to take on heavy armour. That, of course, was what the gunships were for.


	3. Chapter 3- Closing In

**Chapter III- Closing In**

* * *

Briefly, Andrei glanced downward as he spotted the wreckage of a civilian helicopter on the lawn leading up to the monument. It had the tricolour flag of France on the tail; briefly, Andrei wondered what had happened to all the foreign embassies in Washington and their personnel. Word was some of them had gotten warning in time, escaping before the fighting got bad. Others had burned their files and dug in, while still others actually evacuated their personnel while the guards volunteered to go join the fight. German, French, British and Canadian troops- albeit in small numbers- had been reported engaging Russian forces in Washington.

Andrei wondered if there were any Frenchmen helping the Americans defend the evacuation site at the monument.

"Guns, guns, guns!" Andrei called, not even bothering to hide his joy as the three gunships left in his group made their first attack run on the Monument. The WSO's, angry and frustrated over not getting to engage in the many battles they saw on the way here, let loose with their ATGM's; Andrei cheered as Orlov locked on an M1 that had just fired point-blank into an advancing BTR-60; like the BTR, the M1 flared like a firework, blue-hot flame burning as its ammunition went up. At least one vehicle each was killed as the gunships flew in, the WSO's opening up with the nose-mounted miniguns as they got close. The three then split as they flew past; Andrei wanted to shout with joy as the adrenaline surged through him; this was why he'd joined the Navy, going into the attack helicopter units. To fly, to fight, and to win. Usually, in that order.

So many Russian attack helicopters had been harassing the evac site, the reports had it that the Americans defending it had actually run out of surface-to-air missiles. The Havoc pilots sweeping the area radioed Andrei as his first run finished, praising him on his group's kills.

Suddenly, though, Andrei noticed a small sun burst into life off to starboard; one Havoc suddenly exploded, then another. As he strained to see the source, Andrei could see trails of smoke coming from a smashed-in corner of some large, important-looking government building. From the maps he'd looked over before flying out, that one appeared to be- the Department of Commerce. That building was supposed to have been cleared already!

While Potemkin and Harkov spread out over the open area around the Monument, doing their best to deny the SAM gunner a target, Andrei keyed his radio. "Red Herring One, advise we take out that American firing on us from the Department of Commerce building; our helicopters and armour are under fire as they hit the Monument, over."

"Already on it, Iron Glass Five!" the battalion commander answered, his voice tight with anger. "I have two platoons of airborne troops advancing on the building; give me two minutes and those Yank sons of bitches will be overrun!"

"Damn good to hear," Andrei said, jerking his ship erratically up and down to deny the SAM gunner a target. In the forward bubble, Orlov was firing away like the missiles and bullets the gunship carried like he had only a minute to spend them in. He was probably singing a Russian battle hymn, perhaps "March of the Flying Tanks", a semi-humorous anthem written by an Mi-24 pilot while he was fighting in Afghanistan. Andrei understood; it calmed some men down, made them able to think better and more calmly. Andrei, on the other hand, just rode the adrenaline high, shut up and flew his gunship. He circled the area, giving his WSO good fields of fire and- just as importantly as attacking the Monument himself- watching to make sure no one came to reinforce it.

Andrei became aware that his gunship was not just shaking from the discharge of its weapons; despite knowing it would make little difference, plenty of Americans kept aiming and sending some bullets at the Havocs and Mi-45's circling their position. Andrei had watched some five BTR's explode and at least three Havoc's go down, most likely from the Stingers being fired by the American in the Commerce building. That fire had stopped, now; observers indicated the Americans withdrew inside the building shortly after Russian paratroopers started to storm up from the ground floor.

"All units, all units, this is Typhoon Four!" the lead Havoc pilot in the area called out over the radio. "We have American Apaches and Black Hawks entering the area; let's meet 'em head to head, over!"

Most of the gunships peeled away to duel with the American helicopters; the Mi-45's, on the other hand, got new orders; a group of Mi-17 transports was coming in from the north, and needed an escort in as they dropped off their infantry. Red Herring One seemed to be directing much of the action around here; Andrei could only imagine how it must be for him, sitting in the cramped hull of a BTR with a mass of radios, shouting orders to one unit and then swapping to another channel and giving a completely different set of instructions to the next. Having to tell a mass of tanks, BTR's, infantry and helicopters what to do- and actually keep their efforts halfway coordinated. It was enough trouble for Andrei, just keeping track of his two pilots. He couldn't even imagine what hell it had to be keeping so many more than that under something resembling control.

As he flew over the streets, between buildings, Andrei heard the minigun in the nose whine and spit fire as Orlov sighted a column of American trucks- Humvees- moving up one street. The gunfire shredded even the up-armoured trucks; hardly bothering to respond with more than some initial .50 cal fire, the Americans scattered out of the Humvees and fled for cover in the nearby buildings. Ultimately, all it looked like the Mi-45 had killed was a line of tan Humvees, but that was fine. The men who'd been driving them would be that much slower getting wherever it was they were going.

Radio chatter was getting frantic; the Washington Monument evac site was still holding, resistance was still tougher than hell all over the city, and now the commander of a battery of SAM's on the roof of the Department of Justice was yelling about a Blackhawk assaulting his guns.

Giving Harkov and Potemkin permission to roam freely and engage targets as they sighted them, Andrei gunned the Mi-45's engines; the group of Mi-17's was getting close now. The critical moment was when they arrived and began dropping their rappel lines to unload troops; the transports had to hold still while doing so, and any AA fire would be a serious problem at such a time.

"We'll take you in," Andrei said, hailing the lead transport.

"Glad to hear it," the pilot said, sounding very harried and overstressed. He must have had a hell of a time getting here.

Andrei climbed as the Mi-17's descended, circling a few hundred feet off the ground as the transports moved in at a few different areas.

"Downed a Blackhawk!" Harkov crowed, his gunship roaring by overhead as he flew towards the Department of Justice building, firing a ATA missile. Then suddenly the triumph in his voice went to alarm. "Hey, watch out, Iron Glass Five; he's spinning out, headed your way!"

Andrei had been moving forward to give his WSO a better distance shot at the evac site; he abruptly looked to starboard and reflexively jerked back on the controls. That Blackhawk was going down for sure; its pilot clearly had little if any ability to control it now, and it was spraying smoke as black as its armour as it went down. The helicopter crashed, but went down fairly intact; Andrei radioed the transports.

"Friendly transports, advise you approach that enemy UH-60 with caution. Hostiles may be inside, over."

"Understood," the lead transport pilot said. "I'll pass it on to the infantry."

Sure enough, as Russian infantry approached the wreckage, gunfire from small arms answered. Amidst the flames licking all over the battlefield and the smoke darkening the sky, the Russian infantry steadily fought their way forward, knowing the Americans who'd survived the crash could not have much ammunition left.

Moving in low over the street, Andrei keyed his mike, talking to Orlov specifically. "Hold your fire," he said, and hit a switch, turning on the spotlight mounted in the Mi-45's nose. He then switched on the loudspeaker system, his voice blaring from the speakers as he talked in passable English.

"American soldiers, surrender or you will be shot!"

The Mi-45 hovered perhaps a hundred feet above the pavement, covering the advance of over three dozen Russian soldiers as they moved cautiously towards the downed enemy helicopter. The gunfire coming from it and the low wall they had crashed behind had slackened, then suddenly stopped- though it looked like they might be out of ammunition, the paratroopers on the ground weren't quite willing to believe it. They were certainly grateful for the Mi-45 overhead; the stubby wings still carried many vicious-looking weapons, and the six-barreled minigun in the nose jutted out threateningly. The spotlight had the while Blackhawk awash in white light; a few Americans could be seen still moving, still alive.

Andrei called on his radio to the other two gunships he had with him.

"Potemkin, Harkov, what's your status and position? Over."

"Harkov here," the older of the two pilots answered. "I'm covering the transports from higher up."

"Potemkin here," the younger pilot replied. "I'm near the Washington Monument; Red Herring One is demanding the surrender of the American force. We've got them!"

"Same here," Andrei said, feeling some of the savage joy he could hear in the newer pilot's voice. The Americans in this section of the city had fought valiantly, but in the end, they just weren't good enough. Andrei smiled grimly; there was a good chance that even if those Americans in the downed helicopter- probably Yankee Rangers or Green Berets or something, given how long they'd stayed alive against so many- would be killed even if they did surrender. But it wasn't like _they_ needed to know that…

"You have _five_ seconds to comply!" Andrei's voice screamed from the loudspeaker. The Russian infantry were slowly moving in, weapons raised and hard eyes looking over the downed Blackhawk. It looked like just a handful of them were left alive; some were down and definitely not moving. But why in hell weren't they surrendering? Faced down with a gunship- two, really, but one aiming its weapons at point-blank range- and two platoons of infantry, these Americans were still holding their ground.

What was this? Andrei couldn't explain it. Was this some more of that famous American ingenuity, getting ready to spring into action? Did they have some can of superior firepower that they would unleash, just at the right moment when the Russians believed they had won?

Andrei thought the Americans' actions bizarre, but then again, they were Americans.

"Mit der zeit, alles endet," Andrei murmured, then keyed his mike and told Orlov to ready the minigun to fire.

"Gladly," Orlov radioed back. Andrei could almost see the smile on his gunner's face.

"Five!" Andrei shouted through the gunship's loudspeaker, beginning the countdown.

"Four!" the Russian infantry were no more than 70 yards off now, slowly moving closer.

"Three!"

"_Two_!"

This was it. "Spin it up!" Andre told his gunner, then switched back to the loudspeaker, tensely spitting out the final word.

"ONE!"

Just as Andrei was about to watch as his gunner- and the infantry on the ground, no doubt, who were pissed off, tired, and hungry for revenge- tear the crashed UH-60 and everyone in it to shreds, something strange happened. Something very odd, very frightening- and extremely bad.

A huge, one-second boom shook the sky, and as if the hand of God had struck it, the Mi-45 just shut down. No warning lights, no screaming alarm- nothing. The gunship just keeled over, blades still spinning, and dove for the street. Andrei's heart pounded insanely in his chest, and he scanned his eyes all over the control board. He wrestled with the controls, pounded every switch; he even tried to grab the lever at the side of his seat and eject. Nothing- absolutely nothing- responded. "Gott in Himmel!" Andrei shouted, his fear turning to raw panic as the rubble-strewn pavement came rushing up fast. Andrei instinctively yelled into his helmet, warning Orlov to brace for impact- just as the Mi-45 plowed into the black asphalt, tearing a deep trench as it shoved cars aside and ground onward, he realised his WSO could not hear him; riding in separate cockpits, the two pilots of a Hind or Super Hind would be quite cut off from each other if the radios quit working.

The blue-gray hull of the Russian Navy Super Hind tore through the pavement, abruptly losing most of its tail as a plummeting Havoc fell from the sky like a rock and crashed, its crew dead the instant it impacted.

Andrei was luckier; as his Mi-45 ran out of inertia and ground to a halt, his head slammed forward as the gunship suddenly hit the side of a wrecked tank. He couldn't tell which side it belonged to, the hull was so badly charred, but it didn't matter. Andrei's head was hurled into the cockpit's control panel and he blacked out. For at least a full minute after that, all over the East Coast, the sky rained with suddenly-disabled vehicles, and abruptly the men of both sides found their battles halted as they fled from the steel rain. After the crashes finally stopped, for the first time in four days, the skies were finally- forcibly- clear, and the cities themselves were silent, seemingly empty.


	4. Chapter - Aftershocks

**Chapter IV- Aftershocks**

* * *

**A/N: I had some difficulty figuring out how I'd write this chapter. What Andrei says to CPL Dunn was inspired by something similar that Agent Zero says to Wolverine in the movie "X-Men Origins: Wolverine". I thought the quote could be very appropriately used by an East German or Russian fighting the Americans, truly believing he is right in fighting for his country, just as the Americans do. One line CPL Dunn says comes out of "Batman Begins"; it is drawn from the last thing Batman says to Ra's Al Ghul in that movie. And if you think my portrayal of the Ranger's choice regarding Andrei is unrealistic, remember that good men- even heroes- are not perfect, and that the extremely brutal nature of the fighting in Washington, D.C. would mean not just the Russians but both sides giving no quarter and asking for none. War really is Hell, and I suppose that is the point this story is trying to make.**

* * *

The first thing that surprised Andrei was the silence; he'd never really believed anyone when they'd told him silence could be deafening, but it was actually very true.

You could have heard a mouse squeak. You could have heard a pin drop. You might have heard a cricket chirp, except they'd all been squashed or had the good sense to run for the hills long ago. In a city suddenly turned into an all-out warzone, the only species crazy enough to stick around was the humans. But then, they had decided the whole city-to-warzone thing was a good idea in the first place.

The next thing Andrei noticed was the pain; he was in what could only be described as agony. Some part of the impact had shattered the glass of the cockpit, cutting into his face and flight suit; the injuries were superficial, and in fact that was hardly the worst of it. The crash had also damaged the hull, bending it out of shape; Andrei, when he tried to move, found he couldn't; his right leg seemed jammed up against the cockpit wall, or perhaps the reverse. Regardless, when Andrei attempted to get up, to get out of the downed gunship before the Americans found him, white-hot pain lanced up from his right leg. The former East German, no more than two weeks from his twenty-third birthday, screamed and nearly blacked out again.

When his vision finally cleared again, Andrei realised his AKS-97 was also pinned by the impact; it was meant to allow him to defend himself properly if shot down, but the damage that pinned Andrei's leg also locked his AK in place on the cockpit floor.

It was deadly quiet outside in the shattered, war-torn street, darkened and littered with ruined cars, burned out tanks, and now, more than a few wrecked helicopters.

It was an EMP that had set all this off; an electromagnetic pulse. It had to be. Some nut had set off a nuclear weapon, but it had to have been a much higher altitude burst than would normally be done; the weapon had most likely gone off at the outer edges of the atmosphere, able to shut down electronics but too high for the atomic blast to have any real harmful effect.

But who in the hell had been crazy enough to set off a nuclear weapon in the midst of all this fighting? What motive could there possibly be?

Would the Kremlin be crazy enough to sabotage their own assault, bringing the mobilized invasion to a screeching halt at the height of the RDU's glory? Not likely. The Ultranationalist leadership, some of whom had been personal friends of Imran Zakhaev, were perhaps a bit crazy- crazy with nationalism. There wasn't a thing they wouldn't do if it meant achieving a Russian victory… but hitting their own invasion force with an EMP would not do that. The Kremlin could not, would not have done this.

So who had?

The French and British were not about to nuke their ally, and the RDU had thousands of men in an invasion force in America. The Chinese weren't even in this war yet. Who else was there but…

The Americans themselves?

Andrei considered that; as he looked around him, trying to determine if he could see or hear any friendlies returning to the street, he considered the chance that the Americans themselves could have done this. It almost made a crazy kind of sense; everybody would know that the Americans better knew their homeland better than the Russians did. That was simple logic. The success of the invasion was entirely dependent on mobile warfare, on all the wonders of combined arms and the electronic coordination possible in the 21st century. Take all that away very suddenly, force the Russians to fight in isolated pockets of units and do so entirely on foot…

It almost made sense. If this had happened all over the East Coast, that meant every one of the three invasion fronts was now on their own now. None could communicate with each other, and their BTR's, tanks, helicopters- along with any fixed wings aloft at the time- were gone. The Navy might make it okay; the ships and submarines would be the only part of the invasion force that could perhaps survive the EMP intact.

A low roar, rapidly growing to a thundering scream to out-drown a train- Andrei saw something big and white- a plane of some kind- hurtling down out of the gloom. He ducked, covering his head with his hands. It was a useless gesture, and Andrei would have laughed had he not been in such danger. Terror seized him as he realised what it was that he'd seen; what had come hurtling out of the sky and towards him out of the gloom.

There was a tremendous BANG that shook everything for blocks, followed by a brief scraping and crashing noise as metal tore and ground against stone and asphalt.

Then it was silent again.

Andrei looked up; a red-and-white airliner had crashed farther down the street, almost around the corner. One engine had torn loose and gone grinding on down the street, leaving a trail of burning jet fuel behind it.

The Mi-45 pilot stared at this new addition to the scene, horrified in spite of his ordinary indifference to American civilian deaths. He hadn't killed any of them himself, but after what happened at Zakhaev Airport in Moscow- who cared if his buddies did?

But this airliner… no one was moving out there. The fuselage was broken up badly, much of it on fire. Nobody could have survived that.

It made Andrei's mind wander; always an imaginative boy growing up, he now pictured what this airliner's crashing had to mean. All over the East Coast; briefly, Andrei pictured those airliners and civilian planes still aloft crashing down just like their military counterparts. Nightmare vision of hundreds dead on airliners that suddenly lost all power, their pilots- just as Andrei had been- helpless to act as their crafts plummeted to the ground.

What about the hospitals, the schools? What about all the young, the sick, the injured and the elderly?

How many hundreds, if not thousands, had whoever launched that nuclear weapon just killed?

On your head be it, Andrei thought silently, as if he could telepathically speak to the one responsible. However many people were just killed now… they're your responsibility. Not mine.

Deeply unnerved by the silence, Andrei took hold of the holstered pistol at his left thigh; left with a little more room than his right, he could move that leg enough that he could get at the pistol if he needed to.

If he needed to.

Andrei looked around him, again struggling with his stuck leg; it hurt very badly. When Andrei tried to force his leg free, he screamed as his leg burned white hot; he could feel the bones grating together. He gave up a second time, lying back and looking up at the dark, stormy sky. Andrei was panting hard, his gray eyes alive and staring; he was in deep trouble here and he knew it. Up there, in his gunship, he'd been able to raise hell with impunity, never having to fear the retaliation of his enemies the way the infantryman did. But he was down. His whole squadron was probably down. And with stuck in a downed Russian gunship with a broken leg, Andrei was a tempting target for either the American military, or roving bands of armed civilians. Soldiers on both sides would soon be coming back out of hiding. Forcing himself to remain calm, Andrei gazed around in the dark, searching for the silhouettes of soldiers among the heaps of flaming wreckage.

Then, down the street, he saw them. A group of infantrymen had apparently taken shelter in a diner, and were slowly- cautiously- moving out onto the street again.

From where he was, Andrei couldn't tell what their camouflage pattern was, whether their guns were of Russian or foreign make. And after several days of brutal fighting, who could even say the two countries' infantrymen would even look that much different, with their dirty uniforms and captured enemy weapons?

It was a chance Andrei needed to take. It was pretty clear to him now that he wasn't getting out of the helicopter on his own; the cockpit door had been jammed shut in the crash and his leg was pinned. If he called out to these men and they were friends, they'd help him. If they weren't… well, if they were the noble, honourable men America always boasted her soldiers to be, Andrei would still be rescued. He'd be taken prisoner, but at least not left for dead out here.

In preparing for the coming invasion of Europe, a gigantic undertaking that was simply awesome in its size and importance, many thousands of elite Russian soldiers had learned the basics of French, German, or English- this was especially true of the Naval Infantry, Airborne Forces, and Spetznaz. Andrei knew that if he shouted out in Russian, that would be a dead giveaway. But German? Plenty of Americans and Russians at least understood it.

The Hell with it, Andrei thought finally. Captured or freed, anything's better than dead. That's all I have to look forward to if I stay here.

"Meine Kameraden!" Andrei called out, looking towards the soldiers as they began cautiously searching just down the street. "Kommt her, bitte! Ich bin geschossen, ich brauch hilfe!"

The soldiers halted; one or two pointed in the direction of Andre's wrecked helicopter. They began moving in his direction.

"Ramirez!" one of the men said, "See who's in that downed chopper!" In that instant, Andrei's blood turned cold; these were Americans. No Russian would dare give orders in English to his own men, not at a time like this, when merely speaking the wrong language could get you shot by the other side. Andrei felt like a damned fool as he watched the American soldiers approach cautiously; he'd just asked for help from the other side.

Two of the Americans approached the downed Mi-45; the rest stood back, covering them and watching up and down the street.

Suddenly, the second of the two advancing halted, gripping the other soldier's shoulder. "Shit," he said quietly. "Ramirez, that's a fuckin' Russian chopper."

"Well," the one called Ramirez said uncertainly, "What do we do about him?" he gestured with his weapon at Andrei, who was still just as stuck in his Mi-45's cockpit as he had been when he'd come to.

"You could get me out," Andrei said, in distinctly-accented but passable English. He had made sure to learn as much as he could before the war started; Andrei, like many young men in Russia, had hoped to use his English to interrogate prisoners and talk with American women once the war was won. Didn't look like either of those things would be happening all that soon.

The older soldier's face darkened; Andrei was starting to figure, from their appearances and gear, that this was a Ranger or Special Forces unit. Airborne for sure, that much at the very least. The older soldier took a step forward. "Fuck that," he said quietly. "Maybe we should just shoot you."

In the light from a burning Havoc not far away, Andrei got a better look at the two men's faces; the older man was in his 20's or 30's, an NCO of some rank if Andrei had to guess. The other was a private for sure, and he looked even younger than Andrei. The pilot laughed a little, shaking his head. When Russia goes to war, he thought, we bring our men. When America goes to war, they send their boys.

Andrei shook his head, his grin half agony and half ironic amusement. "Americans. Aren't you supposed to be the good guys? Play by rules?"

The older soldier stared hard at Andrei, his weapon still aimed firmly at him. "We do. We didn't make you fuckers come here."

"Dunn!" the sergeant called, "What've you got?"

"Some fuckin' Russkie chopper jockey, Sarge!" Dunn called back. "He's stuck!"

"We haven't got time to look for our own pilots! Stop wasting time!"

Dunn turned back to Andrei, who was still occasionally trying to free his leg and just as consistently failing. The soldier had a dark, furious look on his face, and had he not been in so much pain Andrei might have been worried. He pointed at the burning remains of the crashed airliner, down the street behind him.

"You did all of this, Ivan. Those were good people in that plane. Innocent people. You've just been killing 'em by the hundreds."

Ramirez looked at the pilot again; he was young, and though the Ranger could see a pistol strapped to the pilot's flight suit, he had made no effort to use it. "Is this right? Can we just leave 'im?"

"Dunn!" the sergeant called impatiently. "Let's move it!"

"Yeah," Dunn said coldly, "We can."

He turned and started to move away, Ramirez following with some reluctance. Unable to resist another ironic laugh in spite of everything, Andrei raised his voice, calling after the Rangers.

"_Americans_," he chuckled, his voice mocking- and his mind on that nuke, how it was probably the Americans themselves that had set it off. "It's funny how good, innocent people tend to die around you!"

That got their attention, one more time, and for just an instant more than one of them really did consider shooting Andrei. But instead, the one called Dunn almost shrugged, eyeing the downed pilot with a sort of calm contempt. "You ain't surrendered, and I haven't taken you prisoner. Maybe you'll get lucky and your own side will find you. Maybe you won't. The rules say I can't kill you, pal. But I don't have to save you."

The Ranger turned his back on Andrei and walked away, rejoining his unit and taking the younger soldier with him. Andrei let them go; he didn't really care. At least they'd left him alone; it was better than a group of civilian partisans might have done, for example.

Andrei tried the door of his cockpit several more times; it was wedged shut somehow, so effectively you couldn't have done it better on purpose. With so many things on fire out here, it was a mystery to Andrei why his ammunition hadn't gone up or his fuel tanks exploded. Maybe both had been close enough to empty when he crashed that it was no longer much of an issue. Maybe not. Andrei didn't know.

The Russian Navy Lieutenant kept trying to free his broken leg, gritting his teeth against the pain but having no luck regardless. He thought about calling for help, but he could see no one else around, and after his bad luck the first time Andrei was hesitant about putting himself at risk by shouting for help again. This was a war zone, and one whose battle lines and terms of engagement had just changed drastically. And with no air support anywhere anymore, what were Russian forces in the city supposed to do, even if some of them did find Andrei? He was injured, and there was a solid chance he had sustained more than just a broken leg in the crash. Too much else of him hurt for that.

No, Andrei thought, I'll just wait it out. When I know for sure friendly units have found me, I'll say something.

The sky growled thunder, and it began to rain; within minutes it had turned into a rainstorm, damn near a monsoon. Andrei wasn't sure why this was, but it had to have something to do with the recent detonation of a nuclear weapon, high in the atmosphere. He'd heard that, if an explosion of such massive heat occurred so high up, rain and lots of it could in fact be part of the aftermath.

The rain was cold, and with the cockpit's glass shattered Andrei was plenty exposed where he was. He shouted once or twice as he began to feel the rain's freezing cold in full, but nobody came. He shouted in English, then in German, then in Russian. Nothing. Maybe, over this downpour, nobody could hear him anyway.

Andrei looked up at the rain, hearing and feeling it as it drummed down on the wreckage of his Mi-45 and rattled all over the top of his helmet.

His leg hurt. His face, cut by shards of glass, hurt. Hell, his whole damn body hurt. That leg was really starting to bother him, and the cold rain was making Andrei shiver. Too long out here and he'd develop more problems than just his injuries from the crash.

Mikhail Orlov was dead. There was no point even debating it; the nose had taken a hell of a beating when it had hit the tank, and the other airman would surely have moved by now- were he still alive.

The young attack helicopter pilot shouted for help many more times in the downpour, but he never saw or heard anybody. Briefly he reflected on how insignificant he probably was in the middle of all this. So many Russian- and American- aircraft had gone down over the East Coast today, it would be perhaps even years before the count of the losses was finished. There would be dead and wounded pilots all over the place; what made Andrei so important?

_Not a whole lot_, Andrei thought with an ironic smile, _Not_ _too much at all_.

After an hour in the pouring rain, Andrei was shivering badly, and he'd nearly lost his voice trying to call for help over the rain.

Finally he smiled sadly, taking out the picture of himself and his family on the day he graduated from the Moscow State Aviation Institute. Placing it on the blackened instrument panel of the Mi-45, Andrei gazed at it one more time, praying that his mother and brother would stay safe in Kaliningrad, and that his father's Tu-95 squadron would have better luck in the war than the 126th did.

Then Andrei Kriegman of Kaliningrad, the Russian Democratic Union, formerly from Rostock in East Germany, took out his Makarov pistol, snapped a round into the chamber, and put the weapon's cold barrel to his head.

High above the war-torn streets of Washington, D.C., rain came pouring down in sheets and thunder crashed in the distance.


End file.
